Mexico City Air Quality Research Initiative F. Guzman, G.E. Streit
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Transactions on Ecology and the Environment vol 1, © 1993 WIT Press, www.witpress.com, ISSN 1743-3541 Mexico City air quality research initiative F. Guzman, G.E. Streit* Gerencia de Energeticos Alternos y Quimica Ambiental, Institute Mexicano del Petroleo, Eje Central 152, 07730 Mexico, D.F., Mexico *Los Alamos National Laboratory, Group A-4, Mail Stop B 299, Los Alamos, New Mexico 87545, USA ABSTRACT The Mexico City Air Quality Research Initiative (MARI) is one project that is examining the complex relationship between air pollution, economic growth, societal values, and air quality management policies. The project utilizes a systems approach including computer modeling, comprehensive measurement studies of Mexico City's air pollutants, environmental chemical reaction studies and socioeconomic analyses. MARI, a three-year effort, has three separate components: Task 1 - Modeling and Simulation; Task 2 - Measurement and Characterization; and Task 3 - Strategic Evaluation. In this work we present an overview of the project objectives and progress, highlighting the results obtained during three major field exercises in the Mexico City Basin and some results of simulating control strategies. INTRODUCTION Urban air pollution is an environmental problem in many cities around the world which has serious immediate and long-term implications for the health of the population and for the physical environment. Mexico City, in particular, faces a severe air pollution problem due to a combination of circumstances. The city is in a high mountain basin at a subtropical latitude. The basin setting inhibits dispersion of pollution and contributes to frequent wintertime thermal inversions which further trap pollutants near the surface. The elevation and latitude combine to provide plentiful sunshine which drives atmospheric photochemistry to produce secondary pollutants such as ozone. The 1990 census (XI Censo General de Poblacion y Vivienda de 1990) records that slightly over 15 million people live in the MCMA. There are numerous other nearby communities which are in the airshed region of Mexico City, but which are not included in the definition and population of the MCMA. More than 30,000 industrial establishments are located in the Transactions on Ecology and the Environment vol 1, © 1993 WIT Press, www.witpress.com, ISSN 1743-3541 600 Air Pollution MCMA of which 1,500 to 1,800 fall in the medium and large categories. There are 12,000 commercial/service facilities utilizing combustion processes and a large number of non-combustion sources such as dry cleaning, printing and solvent use. The transportation sector includes 2.6 million private vehicles, 56,500 taxicabs, 7,500 buses, 54,500 microbuses, 196,000 gasoline fueled trucks, 60,000 diesel fueled trucks and railway and airport facilities. All of this activity requires fuel: 20 million liters of gasoline and diesel, 1.8 million liters of fuel-oil and 10 million cubic meters of natural gas are used each day [1], Solving an air pollution problem requires much more than engineering solutions. The Mexico City Air Quality Research Initiative (MARI) utilizes a systems approach including computer modeling, comprehensive measurement studies of Mexico City's air pollutants, environmental chemical reaction studies and socioeconomic analysis. It will provide a set of decision analysis tools to assist Mexican policy makers in determining optimum strategies from amongst a vast array of options to defeat the air pollution problem. Environmental analysis will be based on models that provide a three-dimensional real-time picture of the atmosphere over Mexico City, including wind flow and turbulence as well as the concentrations of all environmentally important chemical species. Sponsors for the initiative are Mexico's Petroleos Mexicanos (Pemex) and the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE). Project leadership is provided by the Institute Mexicano del Petroleo (IMP) and the Los Alamos National Laboratory (LAND. The three year collaborative project was signed in July 1990. While the Mexican Petroleum Institute and Los Alamos National Laboratory are designated as the lead institutions for this project, there has been substantial and important support and participation from other institutions in both nations. These include, in Mexico, the Mexican Secretariat for Social Development (Sedesol), formerly Sedue, the Mexican Federal District (DDF), the Mexican National University (UN AM) and the National Polytechnic Institute (IPN). In the U.S., the University of Denver, Carnegie-Mellon University, the University of Utah, the National Center for Atmospheric Research (NCAR), the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) and the EPA have all contributed. MODELING AND SIMULATION Developing a simulation capability for use in making air quality management decisions requires a system of models. For the most part existing models are being used, as the HOTMAC and RAPTAD codes developed originally at LANL, but with significant effort to adapt them to describe the atmospheric physics and chemistry occurring in the Mexico City Basin. Development of the modeling system is described in more detail in references 2-4. Adaptation and testing of the models will continue based upon satellite remote sensing data, updated emissions inventory, and further assimilation of data from the experimental campaigns. Model results to date, however, Transactions on Ecology and the Environment vol 1, © 1993 WIT Press, www.witpress.com, ISSN 1743-3541 Air Pollution 601 demonstrate good correspondence with the patterns and trends of meteorology and air quality in Mexico City. Photochemistry is being evaluated and simulated in two different models, an EPA standard photochemical box model, OZIPM-4, and a full three dimensional airshed model (the most sophisticated tool available for air quality management studies). The airshed model being used is the CIT model, developed first at the California Institute of Technology with continuing development at Carnegie-Mellon University. Airshed simulations of Mexico City air quality were performed at Carnegie-Mellon University, in collaboration with IMP researchers and the codes were then transferred to IMP. The first ever 3-D airshed model simulation done in Mexico City were carried out at IMP in April 1992. This effort is attempting to describe the ozone levels measured across the city on Feb. 22, 1991, a date in the midst of an intensive experimental campaign involving up to 100 U.S. and Mexican scientists. The simulation performed made use of an improved windfield set calculated at LANL and a revised emission inventory. The results are encouraging, but demonstrate the need for updating and improvement in the spatial, temporal and total components of the emissions inventory. CHARACTERIZATION AND MEASUREMENT Three field campaigns have been staged in Mexico City as part of this project for the purpose of obtaining comprehensive data sets describing the meteorology, dynamics and chemistry of the Mexico City airshed. Some of the data is used to develop realistic input descriptions for the simulation models, but much of the data is used for comparison to model predictions so that it may be determined if they are accurately portraying Mexico City. This, of course, is essential before the results of mitigation options may be computed. In September, 1990 a meteorological team from Los Alamos and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration conducted tethersonde and ozonesonde measurements for two weeks. Vertical profiles of wind velocity, temperature, humidity and ozone were obtained at each site at up to 1 km above the surface. To our knowledge, this was the first time in Mexico City that a chemical species or pollutant had been measured above the surface. One of the most interesting findings was the existence and persistence throughout the night of an elevated layer containing a high concentration of ozone. In February, 1991 a major field campaign, and the largest ever in Mexico City for environmental purposes, was conducted over three weeks at several city locations. About 14 different measurement techniques were applied to observe the Mexican atmosphere during that period. They ranged from airborne experiments as instrumented aircrafts and balloons, to state of the art, remote sensing, lidars (Light Detection And Ranging) and infrared detectors, as well as more traditional monitors for meteorological, particle and contaminants Transactions on Ecology and the Environment vol 1, © 1993 WIT Press, www.witpress.com, ISSN 1743-3541 602 Air Pollution observations. More than a dozen participating institutions with almost one hundred people collaborated. In the first week the tethersonde and lidar experiments were co-located at the Valle de Mexico thermoelectric plant. In the second week the tethersonde and other experiments were moved to a sports stadium at the National Polytechnic Institute and the two lidars, from LANL and the Mexican Institute de Investigaciones Electricas (HE) were set up at the Cinvestav site of the IPN about 1 km to the northeast. In the third week the tethersonde team returned to the Xochimilco area while the HE SOz lidar was moved to the 18 de Marzo refinery and the elastic scattering lidar was moved to the UNAM Botanical Gardens. Concurrent with these efforts the NCAR King Air research aircraft was flying 40 hours of measurement time and the University of Denver automotive emissions remote sensing FEAT experiment was being deployed at several locations around the city.